


O Tannenbaum

by VintageOT5



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Christmas, College AU, Fluff, Holidays, Jihoon is grumpy, Other, SVT AS A GLEE CLUB WHADDUP, Shenanigans, Swearing, also my apologies, basically i think im funny, basically they get cool credit for being a glee club, but HONORS fraternities, greek fraternities, humor? maybe??, i did not do their koreanness justice i am sorry, if SVT were at an american university, literally the fluffiest fluff ever, mild alcohol consumption, minghao is itchy, music honors fraternities, nothing crazy i swear, seokmin is too pure, seungcheol is a tired father of 12, use of hyung, used a john mulaney quote because why the fuck not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22140481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VintageOT5/pseuds/VintageOT5
Summary: What's an honors society Christmas house party without a proper Christmas tree?Or the one where 13 dumbasses throw a Christmas party at the end of their semester.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	O Tannenbaum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Blizzard96](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blizzard96/gifts).



> I'd just like to warn people that I've never read much, if any, kpop fic, so if this is a gross bastardization of kpop fic then I am sincerely sorry. I just couldn't get these idiots doing Christmasy things out of my head.

It was Joshua’s idea for the college’s chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda to have a Christmas party, and that meant someone would need to host it somewhere.

And it was Jeonghan’s idea for the SVT Glee Club to host it at the house where they all lived, which meant that the house full of thirteen undergrad boys had to look festive.

And it was Jihoon’s idea—insistence, more like—that they decorate the house with a real, live Christmas tree, which meant they would need to go find one.

And since all thirteen boys would be hosting the party, all thirteen of them wanted a say in which tree they brought home.

Which was how it came to be that one Saturday afternoon at the beginning of December, thirteen undergrad boys managed to cram themselves into Wonwoo’s beat-up Chevy Tahoe and headed out to Carrot Top Tree Farm.

(Jihoon, Minghao, Jeonghan, and Junhui had to crowd themselves into the back bench, Vernon had to sit on Seungkwan’s lap, Seokmin had to sit on the floor, and Chan and Soonyoung had to sit in the trunk. Seungcheol thanked the stars that the drive was only 15 minutes.)

“It’s like one of those clown cars at the circus,” Mingyu remarked as he clambered out into the parking lot.

“Shut up and keep walking,” a disgruntled Minghao muttered behind him.

Dusk was already falling as the thirteen crunched through the gravel entryway to the farm and moved into the rows of pines.

“Nothing too big and nothing too small!” Seungcheol called after the others’ retreating figures as they disappeared into the trees.

Which, of course, meant no one listened.

“Mingyu,” Joshua asked, “are you sure this is the one you meant?”

“Yeah, look at it! Isn’t it great?” Mingyu grinned up at the tree.

Up...and up...and _up._

“It’s got to be over twelve feet tall,” Joshua said, wondering whether Mingyu was trying to make a joke.

“At least fifteen, probably!”

Joshua bit his lip. “’Gyu, we can’t get this.”

“Why not?” Mingyu protested, pouting. “Tall trees assert our dominance.”

“...you realize this thing won’t fit in our house, right?”

“What do you mean? The ceiling in the living room is really high!”

“Just because the ceiling is taller than _you_ doesn’t mean it’s big enough for this tree. We’d have to bend the top of the tree sideways to make it fit.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Mingyu blinked and looked back up at the tree, realization only just dawning. “Right.”

“Seungkwan,” Jihoon said on the other side of the tree farm, closing his eyes and praying for patience. “What is this?”

“Our new tree!” Seungkwan practically sang, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Jihoon opened his eyes again and took a long, deep breath. “No, it isn’t.”

“But it’s perfect! It’s just like in Charlie Brown!”

Jihoon looked down at the tree. ( _“Down”_ being the keyword. He, _Jihoon,_ looked _down_ at the tree.) He was pretty sure he could count, on one hand, the number of pine needles still clinging to the twiggy branches.

“I don’t care how much like Charlie Brown it is,” Jihoon said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What would this look like in our front hall? We can’t get something like this.”

Jihoon tried to ignore the annoying twinge in his chest as Seungkwan’s face fell.

“Ah. Right. You’re right, of course, hyung. Sorry.”

Jihoon pursed his lips and glared at nothing for a few moments, cursing himself for what he was about to say.

“If you can convince Seungcheol, maybe we can get this as a second decoration. Maybe for on top of the baby grand.”

And the twinge in his chest went away immediately as Seungkwan’s countenance brightened again. “Ooh, I’ll go ask!”

Jihoon really hoped he wouldn’t regret saying anything.

The first stars were twinkling overhead in the night sky by the time Seokmin came jogging towards Seungcheol, eyes bright.

“I think I found the perfect one!”

Seungcheol allowed Seokmin to grab his sleeve and drag him along, already thinking through the gentlest way to say no to the tree if he needed to.

But when Seokmin stopped and gestured to the tree, grinning, Seungcheol had to admit he was impressed. It was big, but not so tall it wouldn’t fit properly in the house. And it was full, with no patchy open spots. Seungcheol could just see it decked out in lights and ornaments in their front hall...

“Good, huh?” Seokmin asked, nudging Seungcheol gently with his elbow and grinning at Seungcheol’s smile.

“Go and get the others. We’ve got it.”

When the others gathered, they all agreed—this was the one.

“Nice one, Seokmin,” Jeonghan said, slapping Seokmin heartily on the back. A murmur of agreement came from the others around them.

There was a pause.

“Sooo...” Soonyoung said, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. “How do we, uh, take this thing home with us?”

It took about ten minutes for Junhui to jog back to the building up front and return brandishing a mini axe.

“They said they could do it for us, but it was going to cost extra,” he said as he held the axe out in front of him gingerly. “Someone take this thing away from me. This is worse than running with scissors.”

“Does anyone actually know how to use an axe?” Wonwoo asked around.

There was more silence, in which Jihoon rubbed his temples.

“I’ll do it, I’ve got the muscles,” Mingyu volunteered, reaching for the axe.

Kill Bill sirens went off in Seungcheol’s head as memories of Mingyu’s kitchen knife mishaps flashed through his mind.

“Ah ah ah ah, that’s okay, ‘Gyu, I’ll do it, I’m the leader,” he interrupted firmly, taking the axe. “How hard can it be?”

“Famous last words,” Minghao murmured under his breath.

And Minghao had a point. It took a few solid minutes just to get Seungcheol underneath the tree to properly chop at it, and then another ten in which there were multiple failed attempts, some very near misses, and plenty of swearing.

“What I need,” Seungcheol panted, extracting himself from beneath the pine needles, “is for a couple of you to shake the tree from the top. We can use the tree’s weight against it to bring it down.”

“On it,” Soonyoung said, crouching down and gesturing to Chan. “Get on.”

So Chan and Vernon, situated respectively on Soonyoung and Wonwoo’s shoulders, grabbed the top of the tree and carefully tipped it, back and forth, back and forth, as Seungcheol resumed his shoddy chopping.

“Just a couple more shakes should do it!” Seungcheol called after one last chop, scrambling back.

As Chan tipped the tree towards Vernon, there was a sharp _crack_ , and the base of the trunk came free.

“Timber!” Seungkwan shouted gleefully as Vernon tipped the tree to fall away from them.

All thirteen boys cheered and shouted as it hit the ground with a _thud_ , showering their legs in stray pine needles.

“All hail Coups the lumberjack!” Jeonghan hollered, clapping Seungcheol on the back, and the rest of the boys whooped in agreement as Seungcheol’s face turned pink.

Joshua got to work assigning people to lift the tree from different spots along the trunk, and before long there was a slow, shuffled procession of thirteen exhilarated boys. Dumb jokes and laughter filled the night air in wispy puffs as the group came to a halt next to the Chevy Tahoe.

“So how are we getting this thing home again?” Seokmin asked Minghao in a carrying whisper.

For the third time that night, there was a pause.

“Didn’t any of you fuckers think to bring some rope?” Jihoon muttered.

(It was another five minutes before Junhui returned from the building at the entrance with an armful of rope.)

“Just our luck that we parked so far away from any streetlights,” Seungkwan said, putting down his scraggly little tree and whipping out his phone to turn on the flashlight. Several other boys followed suit, so that the group working on wrestling the rope firmly around the tree could see what they were doing.

It took about ten minutes after the tree was trussed up to get it properly secured on top of the car (“No, not _that_ way, you idiots, I have to drive us home, how am I supposed to _see?”_ “Soonyoung, you can’t tie the tree down with _bows,_ you need to make them knots—never mind, move over, I’ll do it”), but after efforts all around, the tree was secure enough that Wonwoo’s fear of the thing blowing off the roof on their way home was assuaged.

Seokmin started singing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” as he climbed back into the car, and before long, all thirteen boys were singing along, off-key on purpose, as they piled back into the Chevy Tahoe.

“Make sure you stop by a store and grab a base for the tree,” Jihoon reminded Seungcheol over the noise, and Seungcheol groaned inwardly. Just what thirteen boys crammed into a car meant to seat eight needed—a detour.

The other twelve boys, however, didn’t get as stir-crazy as he expected. Chan’s suggestion that Wonwoo turn on the radio to the Christmas station may have helped, since it meant that most of the time waiting for Seungcheol to grab a tree base was spent yelling the words to songs like “Jingle Bell Rock” at the top of their lungs and having too much fun to notice they were packed in like sardines.

“It’s like a tailgate for a playoff game in here,” Joshua commented to Junhui between songs, grinning.

Things only started feeling a little stir-crazy as they turned onto their street—mainly for those crammed on the back bench. (“ _Ouch,_ Minghao, those are my ribs!” “Sorry, I swear! I think this sweater is just scratchy. My arms are _really_ itchy right now.”)

“Everyone help with the tree!” Seungcheol instructed as everyone clambered out of the car again.

Thus began the five most chaotic minutes they’d ever experienced together.

“No, wait, someone needs to go in and put the tree base down!”

“That can wait until we’re done untying, can’t it?”

“We want to set it up all in one fell swoop, don’t we? Here, Vernon, go on ahead and put the tree base inside—”

“Also, some of you should go keep the door open! I’m not putting this down once I pick it up.”

“Not me, I have to go put this little one on the baby grand—”

“Hurry it up, won’t you? We need all hands on deck here.”

“Does Vernon even know where the tree is supposed to go?”

“Where _is_ the tree supposed to go?”

“These are things we should have answered before we untied it!!”

“Too late, untied! Ready, everyone? On the count of three—"

_“Three!”_

_“Hold on a goddamn minute, ’Woo!”_

“I’m not keeping this thing on top of my baby! It’s gonna scratch up the roof if it stays on!”

“Oh, _someone_ is going to scratch up this roof if you don’t give me _two seconds_ —"

“Are you guys coming or what? The longer the door’s open, the higher our heating bill gets!”

“God’s sake, Seokmin—"

“Heave, _ho!”_

“I SAID WAIT A FEW SECONDS!”

“Too fucking bad, Jeonghan! Pick up your end and heave fuckin’ ho!”

“ _God,_ this tree is itchy, is anyone else itchy?”

_“Now is_ really _not the time, Minghao!”_

“Are we going in base-first or top-first?”

“All things we should have considered before untying, but _noooo, no one listens to me—"_

“Shut the hell your mouth while we figure this out, Jihoon!”

“If we go in top-first we’ll have more people to pull it through the doorway if it gets stuck—"

“But if we do that, the branches will get bent the wrong way and get pine needles everywhere—"

“CAN WE STOP STANDING HERE AND _MOVE_ , PLEASE?”

“ _Fine,_ if you think we can just _carry it in sideways_ —"

“Not getting any warmer out here, fellas!”

“Okay, I’m making the executive decision—base-end first! Hop to!”

“Slow down, Junhui, some of us are five foot five—"

“Not my fault your mom’s a gnome, pick up the fucking pace!”

“Out of the way, you two!”

“How are we supposed to hold this open if—"

_“Remember how there’s a doorknob on the other side, dumbass?”_

“Try to watch the branches, if you can—"

“ _Don’t shove!_ You’ll shove the tree through the wall!”

“We’re in, we’re in, close the door now!”

“Wait, where’s the base?”

“I thought you wanted the tree back here!”

“WHY WOULD THE TREE GO IN THE KITCHEN, VERNON?”

“I’m not _in_ the kitchen! We have a living room back here, too, you know—"

“Just shut up and bring the base in here!”

“Shit, this tree is a lot heavier than it looks—"

“If you even _think_ about letting go, I will stomp you to death with my hooves.”

“ _Really,’Shua, John Mulaney quotes right the fuck now?”_

“No, Vernon, a little to the right! Your _other_ right, dumbass, I swear to god—"

“Can’t you just adjust it once it’s in the base?!”

“QUIT ARGUING AND PUT THE FUCKING BASE DOWN.”

“ _Push_ , you idiots! Come on!”

_“You told us not to push or we’d put a hole in the wall!”_

“I mean _up,_ push up! We can’t put it in the base if you don’t tip it up—"

“I’m not tall enough for this, someone come get—"

“HOLD IT STILL, I SWEAR—"

“Phthbtah, pine needles in my mouth, gross—"

“ _Jesus_ , my arms itch—"

“Still not the time!”

“Someone get under the tree and screw this thing into place already!”

“Move your feet, we can’t get to the screws if you—"

“All of this would have been easier if we’d come up with a plan!”

“NOT HELPING!”

“I’m good on my side, how about yours, Chan?”

“Fuck’s sake, is this a goddamned golf tournament? Speed it up!”

“Alright, alright, Jesus!”

_“Doo doo doo doo, doo doo dooooo—"_

“Shut up, old man, no one watches Jeopardy anymore—"

“I GOT IT, WE’RE GOOD, ALL CLEAR!”

“Back away slowly now, lads, just in case—"

All thirteen boys collapsed on the floor, panting and irritated, grumbling under their breaths. For a while, no one said anything, just spent time catching their breath. One by one, they looked up at the tree, appraising.

Seokmin sat up and leaned back against the door.

“I was right, this was the perfect one.”

A chorus of tired grunts of agreement rose up from the others.

“Still needs to shift a little to the right,” Jihoon muttered, and the others groaned and reached out to slap whatever part of him was nearest.

“’Hao, you’re going to draw blood if you scratch yourself that hard,” Chan scolded, grabbing one of Minghao’s arms and frowning.

“Really itches,” Minghao muttered, still scratching while Chan rolled one of Minghao’s sleeves back.

“Uh, this looks like a rash,” Chan said, concerned. “What happened?”

“I dunno, I thought it was just my sweater or something. But I didn’t get itchy until we headed back home.”

Chan excused himself to grab the first aid kit. Seungcheol frowned at the rash on Minghao’s arms, looking from him to the tree and back.

“Uh, ’Hao…are you allergic to pine, maybe?”

Minghao froze for a moment, then groaned. “Wouldn’t be surprised. God knows I’m already allergic to the rest of nature.”

“That could be a problem,” Joshua sighed. “Are you gonna be okay with having the tree here in the house?”

“Do you mean to tell me,” Junhui started in a dangerous voice, “that we just went out to a tree farm, chopped down a tree with an actual axe like Paul fucking Bunyon, wrestled the damn thing on top of the car, and finally got it in here without killing each other…and now we may have to throw it out?”

“No one’s throwing the tree out, Jun,” Seungcheol said.

“I think I’ll be fine,” Minghao said as Chan returned with gauze and ointment. “Just don’t make me touch it anymore.”

“The things we do for Pi Kappa Lambda,” Seungkwan muttered. “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.”

The rest of the boys groaned again and reached to slap Seungkwan.

\--

No one in SVT house was allowed to make plans for the night of the eleventh. It was, as Seungkwan dubbed it, the night of the Very Important Dinner. Normally, this sort of lighthearted sarcasm would bother Jihoon, but this time he let the nickname be.

Because it _was_ a very important dinner.

The reputation of their glee club was on the line, the way he saw it.

“Where’s Chan?” Jihoon asked when 6:30 PM rolled around and there were only 12 boys in the living room.

“He texted the group chat to tell us he’d be a little late,” Vernon said, not looking up from his phone.

_Late._

After two weeks of advance warning, and rescheduling meetings, and cancelling other plans, and someone was still going to be _late?_

Jihoon tried, _so hard_ , to keep calm, but he could already feel a vein pulsing in his temple.

“Late? How late?” he tried to ask as casually as possible.

But from the nervous glances the rest of the boys gave each other, Jihoon sounded anything but casual. Even Vernon realized, looking up from his phone.

“Ah, don’t sweat it, hyung. Chan’s a Bio minor and his lab is on the other side of campus, remember? He’s already on the bus; it’ll be, like, five minutes. He almost skipped, but he only gets the one skip, and he had to use it already for our competition in Milkwaukee, so...”

Well, great. The twinge in his chest was back.

Jihoon took a deep breath, unclenching pretty much everything. “Oh, right, yeah, of course. Shit, sorry.”

Seungcheol clapped Jihoon on the back reassuringly.

And when Chan rushed in the front door (five minutes later, as predicted), he had multiple takeout bags from Jihoon’s favorite bibimbap place as a peace offering.

“Ah, you know I wouldn’t be late without bringing something to show for it, right, hyung?” Chan grinned, handing Jihoon a takeout container with Jihoon’s exact, specific order.

The corners of Jihoon’s lips twitched a couple times. Chan took this as a victory.

“Well, then, gentlemen,” Jeonghan said after several minutes of silence, save for chewing and slurping and the scraping of chopsticks, “how are we decorating our kickass tree?”

Thus began what Seungkwan later dubbed The Great Christmas Debate, and while Jihoon rolled his eyes anytime Seungkwan referred to it thusly, he didn’t entirely disagree. He hadn’t realized there were so many ways people decorated their homes for the holidays, let alone their Christmas trees.

Every aspect of the tree decorations was apparently up for speculation.

“What do you _mean,_ popcorn and cranberry garland? _Real_ popcorn and cranberries? Wouldn't those go bad really fast?”

“Popcorn and cranberries won’t go bad, Jihoon,” Joshua explained evenly. “I mean, of course don’t _eat_ them when you take them off the tree later, but loads of people hang a popcorn and cranberry garland on their trees. It’s a very traditional thing to do.”

“My family usually skips a garland of any kind and does tinsel instead,” Mingyu mentioned.

“But like… _why_ would you want to hang tinsel?” Jeonghan asked, wrinkling his nose.

“Shiny.”

“…But…it’s all loose pieces, and inevitably it ends up all over the floor, and it makes the tree look so _messy_.”

“Shiny tree,” Mingyu protested.

“Mingyu, _no._ ”

“We have to keep the mess as manageable as possible. The tree already sheds pine needles,” Seungcheol admitted, then added kindly to Mingyu, “I’m sure the lights will make it shiny enough.”

“But what _kind_ of lights?” Soonyoung asked. “Just plain lights, or red and green, or multicolor, or?”

Half of the other twelve said “plain” and the other half said “multicolor”.

(Jihoon felt that vein in his temple pulse again.)

“I think it depends on what kind of colorful lights you get,” Seokmin explained. “Some of them can look tacky, especially if they’re too LED. But if you get ones that have a warmer light, then they look great, and they make the tree pop.”

Seungcheol nodded, frowning. “But will it make us look too…childish? We don’t need to look _elegant_ or anything, but if it’s for the entire chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, we want to look a _little_ professional.”

“The professional-looking part will probably come down to the tree topper we choose,” Wonwoo said. “And of course we know what we want to top the tree with.”

Everyone replied “a star” except Seungkwan, who said “an angel”.

“I thought only old people put angels on the tops of their trees,” Junhui joked, rolling his eyes.

Seungkwan scowled at him. “The tradition goes that an angel on the top of your tree guards your household from ghosts over the holidays.”

“That’s exactly what a superstitious old person would say!”

“Well, I’m sorry I don’t want ghosts haunting our party!”

“We could put a little Yoda on top of our tree instead,” Vernon piped up. “And he could keep away ghosts with the Force.”

Jihoon turned his head so sharply to face Vernon that he nearly got a crick in his neck.

“Vernon, I swear to _god_ if I even see _one_ ornament on this tree from your stupid Star Wars movies—”

“Yeah, just how goofy or cute can the ornaments on the tree get, by the way?” Chan asked. “My family puts up a tree in the front hall that only has fake cotton snow and icicle ornaments on it to look all fancy, and then we have a little tree in the back of the house with all those ornaments on it that we made when we were kids.”

“We are _not_ getting a second tree,” Minghao insisted, scratching absently over his sleeves at the rash still lingering on his arms.

“We like to hang candy canes on our tree at home,” Wonwoo mentioned.

“Why do you all insist on putting _food_ on the tree?” Jihoon asked, exasperated. “It’s not a buffet!”

(Soonyoung decided, upon hearing this exchange, to keep the tradition of hiding a pickle on the tree to himself.)

“Ooooookay!” Seungcheol interrupted. “It sounds like we’ll need to put this to a vote. Piece by piece.”

In the end, a popcorn garland and tinsel were nixed, a star was approved, and Seungcheol decided that ornaments didn’t have to be overly fancy, but they couldn’t be crude or excessively tacky, either. The jury stayed out on what type of lights, and in the end, Seungcheol appointed three people to buy the decorations—Joshua, who wanted colorful lights; Chan, who wanted plain lights; and Junhui, who didn’t care.

“We’ll trust you to bring back lights that you all agree on,” Seungcheol said, ignoring the way Soonyoung snorted at this.

“Are you sure it’s the best idea to let those three be in charge of the Christmas decorations?” Jeonghan asked Seungcheol softly once the meeting was over.

Seungcheol shrugged. “’Shua will be with them. He’ll keep them in line.”

\--

In retrospect, Seungcheol should have known better.

But in his defense, he really _had_ trusted Joshua to be the voice of reason…the mom friend, if you will.

Just once— _one time_ —he didn’t want to be the mom friend.

And of course, this is what came of that.

“Yah! Chan, Joshua, Jun!”

One by one, each boy popped up at the top of the staircase, looking confused.

“Something wrong?” Joshua asked.

Seungcheol hoped the depths of his exhaustion showed in his face as he gestured to the multitude of bags at the base of the stairs. “Care to explain all of…this?”

“Those are the Christmas decorations,” Junhui said.

“Yes. Funnily enough, I picked up on that part,” Seungcheol replied, feeling an almost-funny weariness seeping into his bones. “Care to explain why there are this many?”

He’d stopped counting bags once he reached twelve.

“Oh, it’s okay, they’re not just for the tree,” Chan explained, as if that would put Seungcheol’s mind at ease. “We got to the store and decided that it’d be nice to make the whole house festive for the party. There’s some pretty great stuff in those bags, you should take a look.”

Seungcheol looked directly at Joshua, who had the good grace to look a little sheepish.

“Can I see the receipt?”

Joshua shifted from one foot to another. “I mean…you can. I don’t know if you want to, though.”

Seungcheol sighed, folding his arms across his chest. “Just tell me the damage.”

Joshua looked a little nervous now. “Um…okay. If you’re sure.”

In the far upper end of the house, Wonwoo was holed up in his room, door shut, headphones on, studying for his literature final and contemplating visiting the kitchen for a snack.

And through all of it, he still he heard a distant squawk of, _“You spent_ how much _on Christmas decorations?!”_

Wonwoo decided he didn’t need a snack that badly. He could wait until the coast was clear.

\--

Unlike most Saturdays, the one before finals week saw all thirteen members of SVT glee club out of bed and dressed by 9 in the morning (even Soonyoung, although Jihoon had had to roll him off the bed and let him fall to the floor to manage it). That in itself wasn’t unusual, since they usually set aside one Saturday each month to clean the house. This Saturday, however, had more than just cleaning in store, and not a single person was allowed to miss.

“Let’s get the living rooms and kitchen clean first,” Seungcheol instructed, opening the hall closet for cleaning supplies. “Since that’ll be where most of the decorations will go.”

As casually as he could muster, Junhui asked, “so, are we putting up _all_ the decorations today?”

Seungcheol whipped his head around and fixed him with a Look.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are there too many decorations to put up? I wonder whose fault that could be.”

A couple of boys smirked as Jun lifted his hands in surrender, looking like he regretted saying anything.

“Easy, Coups,” Jeonghan murmured, clapping Seungcheol on the shoulder and grabbing a duster. “Give the man a break.”

“If we’re not going to return any decorations, then you bet we’re getting our money’s worth out of every last one of them,” Seungcheol muttered as he passed Junhui the mop and bucket. “This party had better go down in Pi Kappa Lambda history.”

“Christmas spirit, Christmas spirit,” Joshua said bracingly, shaking open a trash bag.

It only took an hour and a half for the house to return to a tidy, spic-and-span state—all the other boys thanked Mingyu for it, like they did every month, and Mingyu said “yeah, well, keep on top of your clutter next month and you won’t have to thank me”, like he did every month.

“Quit fiddling with your speakers and come grab some decorations,” Wonwoo said to Jihoon as he carried an armload of stockings towards the mantle.

Jihoon grimaced at Wonwoo. “I’m setting the sound system up to play Christmas music while we go. I just need to find a good playlist.”

“I’ve got one!” Vernon piped up as he trailed behind Wonwoo with a stack of boxes with hooks for the stockings. “I’ve been working on making it perfect for months. It’s _really_ good, hyung, promise.”

He dumped all the stocking hooks into the armchair next to the mantle and fished out his phone, letting Jihoon scroll through and inspect the playlist for himself.

“Sure, this works,” Jihoon finally said, and Vernon grinned, reaching for the aux cable.

“What is all of this for?” Seungkwan asked in the front room, pulling out a long, long trail of artificial pine garland.

“Ooh, I’ll take that!” Chan hopped over the couch and took it. “I thought it would be cool to wrap it around the staircase banister. Here, hand me those ribbons, too.”

“Did someone already get into these?” Joshua frowned, wrestling a tangled, knotted-up mess of icicle string lights out of a shopping bag. “This is a giant mess.”

“You take one end, I’ll take the other,” Junhui sighed, sitting down by the front door and grabbing an end.

“Those idiots really got this,” Minghao muttered, shaking his head at a wall hanging bearing the words, “There’s Snow Place Like Home”. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“Mistletoe?” Mingyu mused, raising an eyebrow as he gingerly pulled out a bundle of green leaves and white berries tied in a bow. “Um…”

“Give me that, I’ve got plans,” Jeonghan insisted, swiping it from Mingyu’s hands and disappearing down the hall with a smirk.

The Christmas playlist was abruptly interrupted a half hour later as an advertisement for potato chips began blasting over the speakers instead.

“Vernon!” Jihoon shouted.

“Sorry, sorry!” Vernon apologized, hurrying over to his phone. “I haven’t bought the subscription yet, I keep forgetting…”

Jihoon rolled his eyes and whipped out his own phone. “Just send me the playlist, I’ve got it. That absolutely can’t happen at the party.”

“Ooh,” Seokmin hummed, eyes lighting up at the picture on the box for a light-up reindeer. “Look, hyung, his head will move if you set him up right!”

“Which one of us got that thing?” Junhui muttered. “Kinda tacky.”

“Ah, but look at him,” Seokmin pouted, holding up the picture on the box. “He’s great. Please can we put him up? Pleeeease?”

“Ask Seungcheol,” Jun said, then paused. “Actually, don’t do that. He’ll probably just lecture you on how we have to use all the decorations since we’re keeping them. You can put him up.”

“I’m only lecturing _you,_ you know!” Seungcheol called out from another room. “You and Chan and ’Shua are the ones who bought the entire Christmas store!”

Seokmin grinned, tearing open the box to start assembling the deer.

“Finally,” Joshua declared, undoing the last knot in the string of lights. “Whoever did this to these lights should be shot.”

“Christmas spirit, Christmas spirit,” Seungkwan joked from the Christmas tree, where he was wrapping a gold tinsel garland in the branches.

Joshua tried to make a face, but couldn’t fight back a smile.

“These are for outdoors, right?” Minghao asked, pulling out a couple boxes of light nets.

“Yeah, for the bushes,” Chan said as he straightened the garland on the banister. “I can help you put them up, just let me grab some extension cables.”

Chan, Minghao, Junhui, and Joshua all donned coats and headed outside, laden with lights.

“Need help with the tree lights?” Wonwoo asked Seungkwan, watching him finish wrapping the garland in the tree.

“Please,” Seungkwan said gratefully, sounding a little out of breath. “This is so much harder to do by yourself.”

“Looks great, guys,” Seungcheol said when he walked past to grab more decorations. “Hopefully we’re almost done, then we can get dinner. Pizza’s on me.”

“Even one with olives and peppers and mushrooms?” Seungkwan asked hopefully.

Seungcheol grinned, shaking his head in disbelief. “I mean…if that’s really the kind of pizza you want, yeah. Can’t imagine why, though.”

When Seungcheol got to the front hall, he sighed in relief when he came into the front hall and saw only three bags of decorations left.

“Probably for the best,” Jeonghan said when Seungcheol brought them into the back of the house. “It kinda looks like Christmas threw up on every flat surface.”

“At least our moms would be proud,” Vernon offered whilst pulling holiday-themed coffee mugs out of one bag.

“Hyung, where do we keep our ladder?” Minghao came in and asked a half hour later.

“Should be in the supply shed,” Wonwoo said, frowning at the lights he and Seungkwan were winding around the tree. “I think we need to undo a loop or two,’Kwan. There’s a gap right here.”

“Do you guys need tape or hooks for the roof lights?” Jeonghan asked as Minghao headed towards the back door closer to the shed.

Minghao shook his head. “Think the last people who lived here left their hooks up. Nice, huh?”

“ _Very_ nice.”

Jihoon frowned as he grabbed a string of lights from another shopping bag. “Are the bulbs meant to be this big?”

Soonyoung inspected the string of lights over Jihoon’s shoulder. “Yeah, they should be fine. I don’t think it’s supposed to go on the tree or anything, look how short the string is.”

Mingyu held out his hand to Jihoon. “I’ll hang them around the island counter.”

Jihoon sighed, relenting the lights. “Guess it wouldn’t be a proper frat party if we didn’t hang lights on the kitchen counters.”

“Been to a lot of frat parties, have you?” Soonyoung joked.

“Why would we be having a frat party?” Mingyu asked, and both Jihoon and Soonyoung groaned.

“We’ve had this conversation, ’Gyu! I still don’t know how you applied for an honors fraternity without realizing what it was!”

The daylight was nearly gone by the time the four boys came in from outside.

“The lights are set up outside, come take a look!” Joshua called.

There was a bustling of boys finding jackets and shoes, and then one by one everyone stepped outside onto the front lawn.

“Wait, wait, can we plug this little guy in, too?” Seokmin asked, clutching the now-assembled light-up deer.

Junhui sighed. “Put him where you want him. We have one more extension cord.”

Five minutes later, twelve boys huddled together down at the curb as Chan held up a couple of plugs.

“Ready?” He called.

“Yes, plug them in, already, it’s cold!”

Chan made a face at Seungkwan and plugged the extension cords together.

For one glorious second, all of the lights outside flickered to life—

And then every last one of the lights, both inside and out, flickered out immediately.

“Motherfucker,” Wonwoo groaned. “No one thought this might blow a fuse?”

“Ah ah ah!” Chan extended his hands and shouted authoritatively. “Nobody move!”

“But it’s cold out here!”

Chan started jogging around towards the back of the house. “No one move! I swear! I’ll fix the fuse box in, like, two seconds!”

It was not two seconds.

“Come on, you guys, give him another minute or two,” Seungcheol said firmly, and everyone groaned but obeyed, shuffling around to stay warm and cursing under their breaths.

But not a single one of them could help an “ooooh” as the lights flickered back on—inside, too.

“The icicle lights look great, ’Shua,” Seungcheol complimented. “I like that they flicker like they’re melting, adds a nice touch.”

“How did you guys get the lights on the bushes so even?” Vernon asked.

“They were the easiest part,” Minghao explained. “They’re set up like nets and you just have to toss them over the bush and plug them in.”

“I see why this took you guys so long,” Seungkwan commented, nodding at the two now-bare maple trees wrapped in lights. “That looks like it took ages. Good on you, Junhui.”

“Look at him!” Seokmin exclaimed, pointing at the light-up deer and grinning like a proud father. “I set him up right, his head really does move!”

The boys whooped and clapped as Chan reappeared around the side of the house, grinning.

“Fixed it, told you it wouldn’t take long!”

“Nice job, you guys, it looks great!” Vernon said, and everyone voiced their agreement.

“Looks like it’s gonna snow,” Jihoon said as everyone shuffled back towards the house, glancing up at the dark clouds hanging overhead.

“God, wouldn’t it be nice if we got snowed in and couldn’t go to finals on Monday?” Soonyoung sighed as they all filed through the front door. “My first one is at 8 in the morning. Don’t know how I’m going to wake up in time.”

“Sounds unlikely,” Seokmin said sympathetically, holding the door open for Soonyoung. “I’ll help get you up, promise. I’ve got an 8 AM final Monday, too.”

Seungcheol called for the others’ attention and whipped out his phone, taking pizza orders.

“Why don’t we decorate the tree before the food gets here?” Joshua suggested. “Then we can watch a movie while we eat and won’t have to pause it.”

The boys agreed, shedding their jackets and gathering around the tree.

Jeonghan got on his stomach and wriggled under the tree, plugging the lights in.

“Colorful won, huh?” He asked as he wriggled back out.

“Fine by me,” Chan said, shrugging. “These looked really nice on the trees in the shop.”

“My turn with the aux cable,” Wonwoo told Vernon as the boys prepared to decorate the tree.

“It has to be Christmas music,” Jihoon called to Wonwoo. “And no ads.”

“Got it covered!”

Junhui came into the front living room laden with more shopping bags. “Got the ornaments!”

“What? There are more? There were _more bags?!”_

Jun looked sheepish when Seungcheol glared at him. “I, ah, I figured you were already a little, um, upset about the other decorations? So I put these in my room. Plus, these were from the dollar store on sale, so these didn’t rack up much of a tab. Promise, hyung.”

Seungcheol grumbled things under his breath about “betrayal” and “going into debt over Christmas”, but shrugged.

A few boys groaned as Nat King Cole’s version of “The Christmas Song” started playing over Jihoon’s sound system.

“What?” Wonwoo asked.

“You’re just as bad as my grandpa,” Joshua teased. “He loves to listen to old music at Christmas.”

“What kind of Christmas is it without _Nat King Cole_ , you uncultured Philistines?” Wonwoo asked, looking genuinely appalled.

“Ooh, ooh, look at this thing we found, hyung!”

Chan pulled what looked like a large, gilded treble clef, grinning.

“That’s, um…what is it?” Seungcheol asked.

“It’s our tree topper!” Chan announced, raising it above his head so everyone could see.

“Ooh, I like it! It’s clever,” Soonyoung complimented, grinning. “Since the party is for the music frat.”

Everyone agreed it was better than a star or an angel, for sure. (“Or a Yoda,” Jihoon muttered, shooting Vernon a Look.)

Chan handed the clef over to Mingyu, who stretched onto his tiptoes and perched it on the top branches of the tree.

“I like these,” Vernon mused, picking up a couple of reindeer-shaped ornaments. “Cute.”

“These look like snowballs,” Seokmin mused, hanging a sparkly white ball ornament.

“Uh, Wonwoo…?” Junhui asked, smirking.

Wonwoo ignored Jun and continued to hold the candy cane-shaped ornament to his nose for another moment. Then he pumped his fist.

“They’re real! These are real candy canes! Let’s go!”

“Great,” Jihoon muttered, but grabbed one anyway, unwrapping it and popping it in his mouth.

Minghao kept his distance from the tree for scratching reasons, pointing out politely where there were gaps in decorations, and before long all the ornaments were gone, and the boys were stepping back to admire their handiwork.

“It looks…” Seungcheol started, trailing off.

“Great,” Seungkwan finished, smiling at the tree.

The other boys agreed, and Joshua went to grab the hand vacuum to take care of the stray pine needles knocked loose as the doorbell rang.

“Just in time,” the pizza man commented as he handed Junhui the pizzas. “Starting to get snowy, we’re not gonna stay open much longer.”

“Ooh,” Junhui murmured, looking behind the pizza man and seeing the first stray flurries whirling around in the night air. Soonyoung was going to be excited.

“Anyone down for The Santa Clause?” Vernon asked, scrolling through the holiday movie options on the TV.

“Heck yes,” Seokmin said, grabbing a couple slices of pepperoni pizza. “One of the best Christmas movies ever.”

\--

Soonyoung excused himself from the movie halfway through and wandered into the kitchen, glancing every now and then back into the living room to see if Jihoon had noticed.

When he was certain the coast was clear, he opened the fridge and dug around in the back. Surely no one had thrown it out, right? He’d only bought them this week…

“Aha,” he whispered, grabbing the jar of pickles behind the water pitcher.

They had a special ornament for the pickle tradition at home, but he figured a real pickle wouldn’t be so bad. Not for such a brief period of time, right? He wasn’t sure before how he’d find a way to _hang_ it, but thankfully, there had been leftover ornament hooks and loops from the other ornaments the boys had bought, so he only needed to make a little hole in the pickle to hang it from.

Quietly, he opened the pickle jar and retrieved the best-looking pickle, drying the brine off with a napkin and pulling out an unfolded paper clip. He bit his lip, using the clip to make a hole in the top of the pickle. _Just one ornament loop should do it_.

He glanced back into the living room, confirming that everyone was still focused on The Santa Clause, and slipped silently through the hallway to the front living room. Now…where to hide it, where Jihoon wouldn’t see?

Soonyoung smirked, getting up onto his tiptoes and looping the pickle over a high-up branch. He scooted the ornament as far back as it would go, letting the garland conceal it from sight. _Perfect_.

Soonyoung turned to head back into the movie and came face to face with Jihoon.

“Left my phone in here, I think,” Jihoon said, raising an eyebrow at Soonyoung. “What are you doing?”

“I…I was, uh…fixing the garland,” Soonyoung stammered, floundering around for a good excuse as his heart pounded in his throat.

Jihoon nodded, glancing around at the coffee table for his phone. “We did good on this tree, gotta say. Even if there are candy canes on it.”

He shot a nasty look at a candy cane hanging on the tree, as if it had personally offended him.

Soonyoung laughed nervously. “Yeah, well…they’re wrapped, that has to count for something, right?”

“I guess it could be worse. There could be _raw_ food on the tree.”

“Yeah…” Soonyoung trailed off, clearing his throat. “I think I, uh, need more pizza.”

He fled before Jihoon could ask any more questions.

\--

When the SVT boys woke up on Sunday, the world was white. Snow was flurrying down so thickly they could barely see to the end of the street, and it showed no signs of letting up. Minghao fetched a yardstick out of the supply shed and measured the snowfall every couple of hours, reporting to the cheers of all when it got to a foot. Soonyoung tried not to get his hopes up when the snow continued to shower down densely that evening, but his whoops and yells of victory could be heard throughout the house when he read an email from his professor telling them the exam would just be due online by midnight on Monday.

Seokmin still woke Soonyoung up early the next morning.

“’S a snow day, ’m not gettin’ up,” Soonyoung mumbled, frowning.

Seokmin still shook his shoulder. “But if you get up and finish your exam now, you can join the snowball fight we’re gonna have this afternoon.”

Soonyoung cracked open an eyelid.

“Snowball fight?”

“Snowball _war,_ ” Seokmin amended, grinning.

Soonyoung sighed, making himself sit upright. “Fine. But I call being on Jeonghan’s team.”

By that afternoon, the boys with exams had done them, and the boys with exams the next day had already done some studying and were ready for a break. The atmosphere was excited as the boys pulled on coats and hats and gloves, discussing fort-building tactics and talking smack.

“Aren’t you coming, ’Gyu?” Chan asked, frowning when he saw Mingyu still in his pajamas and an apron.

“The party’s on Thursday,” Mingyu said by way of explanation.

“…Ah...?” Chan said, still confused.

“He’s making the food for the party,” Jeonghan explained.

Chan still looked a little confused. “Yeah, but…didn’t he just say the party is on Thursday?”

“Do you know how much food we’re going to need to feed the whole university’s chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda?” Mingyu snapped, pulling several mixing bowls out of a cabinet. “It’s already bad enough trying to make enough food for all of you, you eat so much—”

“It’s best to just leave him be,” Jeonghan whispered to Chan. “He doesn’t mean anything he’s saying, anyway.”

“That’s what you think, ’Han! Don’t patronize me, or you won’t get any of my spinach puffs!”

“…Well, he’d _better_ not mean anything he’s saying, anyway,” Jeonghan muttered under his breath, guiding Chan towards the door. “Sorry, ’Gyu, won’t do it again!”

They left Mingyu banging cabinets, muttering darkly about “bottomless pits”.

The snowball war, everyone agreed, was one of the most epic yet. Seungcheol’s team got dibs on making their fort on the high ground, but Jeonghan was a master of sneak attacks, and that left both teams on equal footing. In the end, a couple of hours later, the snow in their backyard was thoroughly churned through, and the two snow forts were only half-standing.

“I still say we won, since we managed to corner your whole team all at once,” Jeonghan insisted.

“Look at your fort, though,” Wonwoo insisted. “It’s more destroyed than ours is.”

The argument continued as all twelve exhausted boys trudged through the snow to the back door.

“Boots off at the door, that’s an order,” Mingyu instructed as they started to file inside.

“Mmm, what’s that smell?” Seungkwan asked, perking up as he sniffed the air.

“Cocoa, stupid,” Mingyu said, rolling his eyes. “I always make everyone cocoa on snow days.”

“I thought you were, you know…busy,” Chan said cautiously, watching Mingyu closely for signs of an outburst.

Mingyu grimaced. “Yeah, well, consider this a test of my cocoa-making skills for the party. It was a welcome break.”

All the boys shuffled into the kitchen once their snow gear was off and grabbed mugs, thanking Mingyu profusely as he ladled out cocoa.

“Yeah, yeah, just remember my benevolence and stay out of the kitchen this week,” Mingyu mumbled, feeling the tips of his ears flush when they all agreed it was Mingyu’s best batch of cocoa yet.

For a while, the only sounds in the house were slurps of cocoa, sighs of exhaustion, and Mingyu pottering around the kitchen.

“Excuse me?!”

The boys blinked and turned toward the entryway into the front living room.

Jihoon stood there, face deathly blank, clutching a wrinkly-looking pickle on an ornament hook.

“Would someone care to explain,” Jihoon said in a dangerously soft voice, “why this was hanging on the tree?”

(Soonyoung chose this moment to take a long, studious sip from his empty cocoa mug.)

“I won’t be mad,” Jihoon continued in that same soft, dangerous voice. “Just tell me who did this.”

The boys glanced nervously around at one another, unsure.

Joshua decided to speak up. “Um…it was me, Jihoon, I’m s—”

“No, it wasn’t,” Jihoon snapped, glaring straight at Soonyoung.

“It’s a tradition, okay?!” Soonyoung finally burst. “A tradition! One of those German traditions!”

Jihoon raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Soonie…every single one of us is Asian. I don’t think any of us even have any distant German relations.”

“Who cares, that’s the whole point of America, everyone doing any traditions, isn’t it?” Soonyoung continued doggedly. “The first person to find the pickle hidden on the tree gets the first Christmas gift that year, so…you should be glad you found it!”

Jihoon glared at the pickle, then back at Soonyoung. “Ah, yes, a delightful moldering pickle. What an excellent first present of Christmas.”

Soonyoung opened his mouth to argue, but Jihoon cut him off. “They make ornaments for this tradition, right? So get an actual ornament. _No food on the tree._ God’s sake.”

Soonyoung spent the next ten minutes scowling into his empty cocoa mug until Seokmin took pity on him and refilled it, adding extra whipped cream.

“Where on the tree did you hide the pickle?” Vernon asked Soonyoung softly.

Soonyoung shrugged. “Near the top, in near the trunk. Why?”

Despite the innocent look on Vernon’s face, there was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Let me show you.”

Soonyoung stood up and followed Vernon into the front living room to the tree.

Vernon glanced around for a few seconds, then pushed aside a branch near the floor and nodded for Soonyoung to look.

“No way,” Soonyoung snorted, grinning.

A little baby Yoda plushie sat nestled in the branches.

Vernon let go of the branch to conceal him again and put a finger to his lips. Soonyoung nodded; no need to upset Jihoon even more.

“Christmas spirit isn’t dead yet,” he said under his breath and took a satisfying swig of cocoa.

\--

Everything nearly got ruined the next afternoon, when most of the boys were lounging around in the living rooms studying.

“What is he talking about?” Seungcheol growled at his phone. “He had _better_ be joking.”

“What’s wrong, Coups?” Junhui asked without looking up from his book.

Seungcheol glared up at the ceiling. “The Pi Kappa Lambda director. He’s wondering whether we should cancel the Christmas party because of the snow.”

“ _What?”_

Every head turned in Seungcheol’s direction, mixed expressions of worry and outrage on their faces.

“I’ve already made at least five dozen cookies,” Mingyu exclaimed angrily. “If that brainless old fucker thinks he can just—just—”

“Don’t worry, I’m telling him that we still want to have it. If you know a lot of the other students in Pi Kappa Lambda, message them and make sure they’re still planning on coming. The more people we can confirm, the more likely we won’t have to cancel,” Seungcheol said, already tapping out a reply email.

Several of the boys whipped out their phones and started sending texts.

Seokmin looked wistfully at the Christmas tree before heading up to bed that night.

“It just seems like a shame to have such a nice Christmas tree if we don’t get to show everyone else,” he said to Minghao as he made his way up the stairs.

“Especially a live one,” Minghao muttered, although his gaze lingered appreciatively on the colorful lights and decorations for a few more seconds.

The next morning, however, Seungcheol reported the good news that the director had heard from enough people insistent on having the party that they should proceed, even with the snowy weather.

“Too right we will,” Joshua muttered to Wonwoo as he headed down the driveway towards the bus stop. “If I have to endure all of Mingyu’s kitchen antics for nothing, I may break something.”

Despite the ever-tempting allure of the upcoming holiday season, the whole of SVT house somehow managed to make it through the rest of their finals.

It was a close thing, and tempers flared a little high at times (“Do _not_ touch that unless you want to die” “Fuck off, Mingyu, I just finished a calculus exam, I’m gonna have one damn cookie and Pi Kappa Lambda can suck it”) but by Wednesday evening the stress levels had considerably lowered and the excitement levels for the party had risen.

“Whoa! Who bought all these games?” Chan asked, picking up Exploding Kittens and looking at the back.

“I didn’t buy them. You can check these out from the library,” Wonwoo said, lifting the stack of game boxes and moving them to the coffee table.

Chan looked awed. “You can check out _games_ from the library?”

“The library has everything, stupid,” Wonwoo teased.

“Sweet,” Chan breathed, setting down Exploding Kittens and looking at Star Wars Monopoly. “Are these for the party?”

“Yeah, I figure we can have stuff for people to do other than mingle.”

“Nice. Very nice.”

“Well,” Mingyu sighed, folding his arms and leaning back against the kitchen counter, looking at the kitchen island. “I hope this will do.”

Seungkwan snorted, looking at the literal piles of Tupperware containers full of cookies and finger foods on the island. “I dunno, I don’t think there’s enough.”

“This has to be enough,” Mingyu said desperately, missing the sarcasm in Seungkwan’s voice. “There are literally over two hundred cookies. _Two hundred._ And I even checked how many people there are in Pi Kappa Lambda at our school, and it’s, like, eighty, but like, not everyone will come, but also people do seconds and stuff—”

“Whoa, whoa, it’s okay, ‘Gyu,” Seungkwan quickly reassured him. “Sorry, I forgot you’re not great with sarcasm. Seriously, you did great. This is gonna be great.”

Mingyu looked so relieved that Seungkwan felt genuinely bad for teasing him for once.

“Now I just have to stay on top of drinks and we’ll be—”

“Actually, don’t worry about drinks, ‘Gyu,” Jeonghan said, walking into the kitchen with his jacket on. “I’m going to take care of those.”

“I’m already doing the cocoa, Jeonghan—”

“And I,” Jeonghan interrupted evenly, “literally work as a bartender in town. That’s what they pay me to do. You’ve already done all of this, let me help.”

Mingyu squinted at Jeonghan for a second, then sighed and nodded. “Only because I’m tired. I could sleep from now through the party at this point.”

“Perfect,” Jeonghan said, rubbing his hands together. “I’m heading out to grab the drink stuff, give me that list Coups made of everything else we need and I’ll get it, too.”

Thursday morning saw twelve boys of SVT house (all but Mingyu, who had been allowed to sleep in) scrambling around to tidy up anything that had cluttered up since Saturday.

“Hold on, everyone, I’ve got a surprise,” Seungcheol told everyone at lunchtime.

He disappeared from the kitchen and reappeared moments later with two big bags.

“I got a few different colors in each size, so pick the one you like best,” he said, pulling out stacks of Nordic-patterned Christmas sweaters.

“Wait, do they say something?” Joshua unfolded a crimson sweater and grinned. “SVT, nice.”

“Swap you for a green one,” Junhui said.

“I got them hoping we’d all wear them at the party tonight,” Seungcheol said, taking a dark blue sweater for himself.

“You don’t think it’s weird if we all match?” Minghao asked, looking at his sweater apprehensively.

Seungcheol rolled his eyes. “If you don’t wear these tonight, I’m telling Santa, and we’ll see how it goes for you then.”

The boys chuckled, and Minghao shrugged and pulled his on. “They’re soft.”

The rest of the afternoon before the party was spent avoiding the kitchen, this time for the sake of Jeonghan.

“ _Yes,_ ’Gyu, your cookies are on platters and your finger foods are in the oven on ‘warm’, now get the hell out!”

“Wait, are you sure I remembered ev—”

“ _Get out,_ Kim Mingyu! Out! If I catch you back in here before the party, I won’t hesitate, bitch!”

So everyone left the kitchen and drinks to Jeonghan, who was last heard swearing into the crockpot of hot toddy. Jihoon fiddled around all afternoon with fancy features on his sound system, seeing how far a range the speakers could handle, and Joshua was seen every fifteen minutes running the hand vacuum underneath the tree, checking for loose pine needles.

By the time the start of the party rolled around, the thirteen were ready.

“Try us, Pi Kappa Lambda,” Wonwoo muttered under his breath before opening the front door for the first guests.

\--

All in all, Seungcheol thought, it hadn’t been too bad a party.

Ah, who was he kidding—it was the _best party ever_ , if he had anything to say about it.

Nearly every person in the school’s Pi Kappa Lambda chapter had showed up at some point, and so had their glee club director and their music professors. Everyone loved the sweaters, which made Seungcheol beam with pride. Mingyu’s face had almost stayed permanently flushed from how often people were praising his cooking skills (Vernon had nearly spit ice cream punch all over his sweater when he heard a girl mutter “need me a freak like that” about Mingyu to her friend), and everyone had complimentary things to say about Jeonghan’s drink mixing skills, too (although Minghao had resolutely avoided the eggnog after Jeonghan had put it out on the kitchen island with a smirk on his face).

But the best part, in Seungcheol’s opinion, were all the compliments people gave them about the Christmas decorations and their tree. Everyone thought the treble clef tree topper was clever, the outdoor lights pretty, and the entire house festive. Multiple people had even asked them if they’d gotten someone professional to come and decorate the place.

_Including the Pi Kappa Lambda director,_ Seungcheol remembered with a smirk. (“You’re telling me you gentlemen did all of this decorating yourselves? It looks great, must’ve taken ages! We may ask your house to host the year-end party, too, then.”)

As great as the party had been, however, Seungcheol thought this was better. All thirteen boys, full of good food and acceptably tipsy, had finished cleaning up after the last guests (although Seungkwan and Wonwoo had been fairly good at keeping the place clean throughout the party, so there wasn’t too much to do) and set up camp with the remaining of Mingyu’s food and Jeonghan’s drinks in the living room.

“This round it’s peanut butter blossoms, boys, go on, place your bets,” Soonyoung called as he dealt out UNO cards.

The group of boys playing the game reached to the plate of cookies in their lap and put some peanut butter blossom cookies on the plate in the middle, next to the UNO deck, and began to play.

Seungcheol glanced over to the baby grand, where Seungkwan’s little scraggly mini tree had ended up, with one red glass bulb ornament hanging precariously from the only branch strong enough to support it. (Seungkwan was rather smug about the little tree after receiving multiple comments about how cute and “Charlie Brown” it was.)

Jihoon was seated at the keys, absorbed in practicing his jazz improv skills. And he had a great jumping-off point for that, because Soonyoung had surprised him at the beginning of the party with a present.

“What’s this?” Jihoon had asked, suspicious.

Soonyoung had rolled his eyes. “Uh, it’s obviously a flat, oblong, square jar of pickles, because my entire reason for existence is to ruin your life.”

Jihoon had grimaced, and Soonyoung stuck his tongue out at him. “Just open it and see!”

Jihoon had made a face at Soonyoung and torn open the paper, eyebrows raising when he saw two nice piano songbooks of popular jazz numbers.

“You won the first present of Christmas, so this is it,” Soonyoung had said, shrugging.

Jihoon had stared at the books for a couple more seconds, then scratched the back of his neck. “Uh, thanks, Soonie…er, sorry for being—”

“Being you?” Soonyoung had grinned. “Don’t worry about it. Merry Christmas, you dork.”

Jihoon had also found the little baby Yoda plushie on the tree halfway through the party, but had merely tossed it into Vernon’s lap and rolled his eyes. Clearly, Seungcheol mused, the Christmas spirit was highly contagious.

“That had better not be a Draw Four card you’re about to lay down,” Chan grumbled, looking at the gleeful expression on Seungkwan’s face.

“Sorryyyy,” Seungkwan sang, not sounding sorry at all, and Chan groaned as Seungkwan laid down the card and officially won the round.

“But the peanut butter blossoms are my favorite!” Chan pouted.

Seungkwan handed him a few of the cookies from his winning plate. “Okay, I say gingerbread cookies this round!”

“What if we played Star Wars Monopoly for them?” Vernon asked, glancing longingly at the game box sitting by the TV.

“Just one more round and then we’ll try it, promise,” Wonwoo assured him, shuffling the UNO cards with surprising speed.

“What’s in this?” Mingyu asked Jeonghan, sniffing at the glass of eggnog in his hands. “It’s _good_ , but there’s something in it and I don’t know what.”

“I’ll never tell,” Jeonghan said, tossing back the rest of his hot buttered rum. “Anyone else want me to make them a drink? Last call of the night.”

A couple of boys put in orders, and Jeonghan stood from the couch.

“Just add some of the peppermint Schnapps to some cocoa and I’m set,” Seungcheol said, offering up his glass.

This was the best part of Christmas, Seungcheol thought as he sipped at his cocoa and watched his best friends learn how to play Star Wars Monopoly. Good food and drinks, good decorations, good company. Not much more someone could want.

(Every last one of the thirteen paused to admire the Christmas tree before they went up to bed that night. All in all, not a bad Christmas.)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy late holidays!
> 
> If you're down to leave some comments please do! I'd love to hear your thoughts <3


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